Hundreds of leaked, explicit photos of celebrities flooded the internet in September. From different reports on this supposed “iCloud leak,” it seems that one person managed to hack into the system and share the photos through the image-boards of 4chan, putting into question the privacy and security of the internet. Are they really as private as we believe?

Of course, not everyone is a celebrity. But no matter who you are, in the internet realm the past can come back to haunt your future. It is wrong to say it is the fault of these celebrities; these photos were stolen from the privacy of their own phones. However, people should not be sending or taking explicit photos of themselves in the first place. This means that the company themselves could look at these photos if they wanted to. 

Now, these photos are scattered across computers around the globe. File sharing sites, like piratebay which have proxy servers outside of the laws of the US, continue to hold these photos, as some people saved the photos as files on their own desktops. Sites try to take the photos down, such as reddit, but they will never go away. People continue to share the photos on these sites.

Bottom line is, the internet is a scary place. Everything sent and received goes through servers, and the messages and activity are complied and saved as data. Your search history is saved on the your internet modem. As the phones and the internet become closer, it will serve to create a lot more dangers. Even after you feverishly delete those sent texts you sent to your friend about who you like or about the mistakes you have made, they will always still exist in the phone companies systems. You can request to see texts that were sent months ago. That is just the plain truth. And with iCloud, you can ensure your data is continuously synchronized among your Apple devices while they’re connected to the Internet. Everything is saved and stored.

The new iPhone 6 has been released, so a huge influx of people will be getting the new upgrades and a better, faster internet on their phones. While phones and the internet become more integrated, one has to realize the possible consequences. These stolen photos or even bad Facebook posts could be brought back up to schools or employers and could get you fired.

Students need to be extremely cautious about what they share and even take pictures of. Now, it seems that everything is accessible. Nothing can go away. The best advice that can be given is: don’t take these type of photos. The best prevention is not to have them exist at all. Don’t make silly mistakes that could easily be avoided; they could come back to hurt you in the future.